An Elthos Ethos

Being a capsule review of Elthos RPG Core Rules v1.1 PDF

Hello Earthlings, 'tis I, your friendly neighborhood Unwashed Sauvage; Lunar-Don of the Solarian Reich, Madman, Moonman, Mystery Schoolman, Magickal Crusader, Esoteric Spaceman, that's right, me, JD Sauvage. Today we're reviewing a very interesting little package from the ElthosRPG, the one-man-band show of Mark Abrams, nom-de-guerre vbWyrd on ye olde le-media-sociale. Namely, Elthos RPG Core Rules Book version 1.1 (PDF).

This slick engine of a genreless, universal, roleplaying, system (pun intended) is intended to power a campaign that is managed using Mark's intriguing Mythos Machine, a separate but related web-based software product that I am not reviewing here, but you never know what I might do next. Just realize that this is intended from the the outset as a part of a whole, a complete campaign generation and management system. But, how does it hold up to a patented JD Sauvage Reading Between the Lines?

Let's find out, shall we?

Part I. Judging a Book by Its' Cover.

Right off the bat, I gotta say, the font used for the title isn't doing anything for me, it's reminding me a little of the title font used for Pat Mills' and Angela Kincaid's Slaine, but I wasn't overly fond of that and I don't really like this either (the title font, not the comic, cool down fanbois). But then again I hated Joss Whedon's use of Papyrus in Firefly too, and plenty of people thought it was just shiny. What can I say, I'm a font snob.

So the title font, not as bad as Papyrus, kinda evoking a Celtic feel, in fact it looks like a customized version of Celtic Font by Sam Wang available on fontspace. The curlicue Os seem like like they might be a paid-for custom-touch, which might be worth keeping for the branding alone, but I don't know otherwise, maybe just use Gaeilge, which was a type face actually used for printing gaelic texts using Roman characters?

Ahem. Sorry, yeah, my bad, choo-choo! Anywho...

So, ELTHOS Role Playing Game is it?

Why Elthos? What is an Elthos? Seems like a proper noun. Maybe the introduction will tell me?

Now, below the title splash in Gaelic not!Papyrus we have what looks like a chart of astrological and alchemical correspondences. This, this I like. See, it suggests that the author has a clear vision of the implied or default setting's metaphysics. My first impressions are that visually, it's kinda messy. I get the idea of it, it's just... busy. But then I keep reading, and making connections with what's inside. And it's growing on me. Like a fungus. What can I say? I like charts of correspondences. I'm a sucker for 'em.

Right away we see correspondences between the classical planets and zodiak signs (perhaps cheating a bit by including both Sol and Terra as wanderers -- traditionally either the one or the other would be your fixed center-point -- but hey, if you ain't cheating you ain't trying) but what's this? I count twelve planetary glyphs, but if there are nine (don't start with me Pluto deniers) scientific wanderers plus Sol and Luna that only brings us to eleven? What is this circle quartered by an x? Is that Planet X, Nemesis, Yuggoth, or perhaps Gor the Counter-Earth? I suppose it could be Ceres... if you're boring. But you're not boring, are you dear reader?

No you are not. So, we have made a system of twelve (ah-ah-ah) wandering stars, including the default point of view of the observer stuck on Old Dirty, Middle-Earth, Midgard, which each then align with a sign of the Zodiak as well as a classical element in the four-element Occidental system, you know them as Earth, Air, Fire, and Water (Earth, Wind, and Fire leveled up). But beyond this are correspondences with mystical Cardinal Directions and the Cosmological Powers of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos. Yeah. We're cooking with gasoline here.

Oh did I mention that the black background and starfield backdrop immediately evoke a sense that all this is significant in a cosmic way, and further the vine-like Celtic knots decorating the corners also suggest a world-tree. If you ask me, the cover suggests High Eliptony, High Fantasy ,and Weird Space Fantasy all at once.

Chef's kiss.

What would I change? Maybe get a slightly larger, slightly higher-rez version of the chart for the cover, maybe another iteration or two on making it stylistic and evocative rather than didactic. Maybe imply the fifth element, aether or void somehow. But not a lot.

As covers go, this fulfills the function making me, the reader ask, "Oh 'ello there, what is this?"

And that's what it need do.

Part II. Cracking the Cover

As we open the mysterious cover with its alchemical, astrological correspondences, we are immediately confronted with an equally mysterious quote, which I shall repeat here, dear readers, for this is another clue about the document we are looking at; what does it mean, who is it for, what am I to do with it?

"Suddenly a muffled sound broke the silence: knock, knock, knock, like the blow of hammers when the workmen are busy at some distance. Hugo's brace little heart began to beat; for he knew that noise must be made by the Kobolds at work on their anvils deep underground." ~ King Reinhold, Fairy Tales from the German Forests by Frau Arndt.

I was so taken by this quote that I had to look it up, and it is rather obscure and esoteric indeed -- +10 points to Mr. Abrams for making me look it up -- at least in the Anglo-phone world. It might be commonplace in it's native German, but the version translated by Frau Arndt (an English Woman married to a German) for us English speakers in 1913 in the very Victorian mode then very much still in style is one of our few insights into German folklore other than the undying and immortal Brothers Grimm. None other than the great Gilbert Keith Chesterton, a cousin by marriage and himself a great lover of the Fairy Story, provided the introduction and cover illustration to her collection. Yes, in keeping with mores of the time the tales therein collected are a bit bowdlerized and sanitized of the blood, death, and sex no doubt present in the originals. But are we really sad about that? Given what was coming right around the corner for everyone?

What is important about this quote? Well maybe this quote from ole Chesterton himself, also included in this text front and center right ahead of the introduction proper might clear you right up.

"Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." ~ Tremendous Trifles, G.K. Chesterton.

And this is what we are doing, here, at this table gentlemen. We are slaying imitation bogeys with toy soldiers. So we can remind ourselves, train ourselves, arm ourselves with the faith that bogeys can be faced, fought, and brought low.

We still haven't reached the meat of the matter but there's another item in the fore-papers that should be called out. Right after the statement of Copywrite we see this announcement:

"Those who are interested in creating Settings and Adventures utilizing the Elthos RPG including the use of charts, formulas, and stats from the Elthos RPG Rules Book for commercial or non-commercial purposes are welcome to do so, royalty free, no strings attached, with the sole request that an Elthos attribution be included with the products. However, distribution of this rules book as-is on the Internet or otherwise is not permitted without express permission."

Well well well, this is the mark of a hobbyist who doing all this for the shear joy and love of it. And this endears me to Mr. Abrams here. I shall try to not let myself be swayed overmuch by this sentiment, but like everything else so far, I find myself very much sympatico with what I perceive to be the Ethos of Elthos. Bravo.

Moving on, we have the usual sorts of introductory things, in their customary place, introducing us to the concepts we are about to meet. Fairly standard didactic technique; tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. We have sections for 'what', 'who', 'how', but sadly, 'why' is missing. Well there's an idea for the next edition.

What -- "Elthos RPG is a game of Imagination and Adventure... It uses a highly distilled mini-system mechanic and tiny-numbers math for fast action play" -- and boy howdy is that the case as we shall see. We are also told that this is very much a tool kit to roll your own campaign, setting and rules customizations included, generic and flexible enough to handle 'Troglodytes to Space Marines' and everything in between. Here we get our first glimpse of the core mechanic of Elthos: cross reference effect rating versus a resisting rating on a matrix and roll the corresponding value or better. Does that sound familiar? Well it should dear reader, that's the Ur-mechanic of basically every war-game ever. Remember your Strength VS Toughness chart from SpaceMace 80,000? Yeah, like that.

Who is this for? Gamers, fool! But specifically Gamesmasters especially the chronic world builder types (you know who you are) who want to KISS the rules and focus on the world. But unlike other, more modernist rules-light (great taste! less filling!) efforts, Elthos RPG claims to hold true to the Customs and Traditions of the Hobby. Does that promise hold true in practice? What happens when rubber meets road? Let's read on and find out.

How This Book Is Organized tells us where to find things conceptually, describing the sections overall and what to expect to find in them, which is generous. More generous is the excellent and detailed Table of Contents and the corresponding bookmarks provided in the PDF. Wonder of wonders, there's even a proper Index. Generosity indeed! Layout is generally two-column. Headers are clear. Bold and italics are used as appropriate. Interior text is in a very readable sans-serif font that I don't have to think about and basically forget to notice. It's laid out like a technical manual. This is a good thing. Let me repeat that, the layout is not the class above masterwork of say, Old School Essentials, but it does what it needs to do in a workmanlike fashion. Ain't nothin' wrong with two column layout with Chapter and Section headers, and it's easy to go worse.

A Brief History of Elthos takes us back to those heady and early days of the hobby, the late 70s, when the Grand Game was not yet the Grand Old Game. When the World was Young and D&D came in three little brown books that practically required personal initiation from another Gamesmaster into the mysteries and every Gamesmaster was required to have his own interpretation of the mysteries and every table was a law unto itself. Our Good Author, Mr. Abrams, tells us of his journey to apply computer science to bring a little automation to the service of his fellow Gamesmasters.

A quest I myself almost embarked upon. When I was in High School, admittedly, not in the 70s -- but I am old enough that I remember TSR and AD&D and THACO, get off my lawn -- I had the clear vision of a GM's aide program for a device like the TI-84 calculator. Never did I get past the stage of sketching fanciful cases and pseudo coding very primitive logic patterns for some basic loops. But it was farther than I took many of my flashbulbs over the years.

Of course, I never finished learning VBasic, JAVA, and C at the community college and instead took the President's Shilling to hump a ruck over there, and learned how to correctly troubleshoot and replace the component parts on small arms and towed weapons. Oh well. Paths diverging in the wood and all that.

III. Meat on the Bones.

At last, our antipasti and appetizers are now finished, the soup course is removed, we have arrived at the main course, the main body of the text, the rulebook proper, the meat and potatoes of the affair. And right here, at the beginning of the Core Rules section, on a second title page, almost a second book cover, the (first) mystery of 'Elthos' is revealed. We are granted a glimpse of the Elthos Celestial Island. A mythopoetic world-island, God's green flat Earth.

Very much akin to the cosmic world-shard of Hyperborea as seen in Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (why yes, I do like ASSH, why do you ask?) but even more... iconic. Archetypal even. The rim of the world is Mountains, World's Edge Mountains if you will. Rivers run out from the center lake and forest, itself a plateau, table land, or perhaps altar-land, set apart... I'm not saying it's the Garden of Eden, but I am saying there four rivers coming out of it... Take that as you will.

Next we have two pages of hand drawn character sketches, which serve to set our expectations of generic, universal, multi-genre play. We have a raygun cowboy, a swords and sandals warlord, a flapper, a gumshoe, an iron monk, a lens-woman, a bankster, and a bison-minotaur in a business suit. Now it's true that these pieces are amateurish, but, and I think this is fair, these look like the sorts of things we might reasonably see scrawled in the upper left or right hand of a character sheet, sporting coffee or cheetos stains. They feel like real character portraits from someone's actual Call of Cthulhu campaign.

Just when you thought we were ready to dig in to your steak and taters, the Chef drops by your table and wants to check in with you, maybe share you his philosophy of eating. Or in this case, we are given a quick single page primer on the philosophy driving the design of the rules we are about to see. A sort of designers notes section, only presented ahead of the rules instead of after. We get primers on the tiny numbers and single die roll resolution that Mr. Abrams recommends in service of speed and simplicity of resolution. I'm not sure if I agree that 'stark odds... tend to cajole Players towards smart play' given the straight ahead and damn the torpedoes bravado I have seen in all games no matter how brutal. But I'm willing to taste and see.

I do agree with the suggested 'roll the dice in the open and play them as they lie' ethos for sure, dice fudging is for story gamers, which is to say, fake gamers. No I'm not sorry. Do you have any idea how many characters I have watched die before they could achieve the goal set out in their seven page backstory? Just kidding I would never write a back story longer than a paragraph, but the answer is at least a battalion's worth over the years. Traveller alone is worth a couple of platoons of dead, and that's just the ones that died in character creation.

We're playing a game here, not doing amateur theatre. That being said, I also agree that GM Fiat is a good enough reason to make a call if you don't see any reason to let the iron dice roll. But once the die is cast... to fudge is to break the dramaturgical spell of the ritual even more than breaking kayfabe. For in any game, the drama is on the board, the table, the altar, there is the stage, and the script, such as it is, is divined by throwing bones and casting lots. This is your reminder that board games descend from systems of divination that guided when we hunted, when we planted, and later developed into the past times and mental training of Kings and Generals.

More I-Ching than Oedipus Rex. Which ties us well into the sections on descriptions. How's that for a transition? You see just as in divination, the art of Gamesmastering is in reading the signs and communicating that story into the language of men. But, all of us Gamemasters are lazy by nature and likely to resort to the bare minimum, telling rather than showing. You hit, roll damage. The room is 20 by 40. There's a pile of rags in the corner. We can all work on our descriptions. Not just the quantities the measurements, but the qualities, the sensory experience. Instead of 'ok you hit the orc for 4 hp', try 'your sword bites into orc flesh, but not deeply, the orc manages to turn your blow into a shallow and glancing one, he's bleeding from a wound on his side but it doesn't look immediately fatal.' Good advice yes, but it requires factor 'P' for plenty of practice; for it is easier said than done.

Finally we are reminded this is very much a kit and we are expected to cut and nip and tuck and sew and modify as we see the Gamesmasters see fit, to fit our campaign, for in the style of those days of eld, 'every table is a law unto itself.' Which is where the rest of Mythos Machine comes in, which I won't go into in depth here, but know Dear Reader that it is a web based campaign management system as mentioned earlier. Think of it as Obsidian Portal (which is the only real competition I can think of at the moment, but Mythos promises so much more), but not wiki based. But admittedly I haven't really looked at it since the beta opened, so I guess I know what I'm doing after this, lol.

Ok, at last, we really reached the meat of Elthos, for real this time, I mean it, and it is meaty indeed. But not very crunchy. It's smooth, like pate de foie gras or something decadent like that. In concept our fine Author has returned to the well and deeply. The matrix based resolution suggested here points back to the Ur-game, the common ancestor that unifies D&D, Chainmail, and Warhammer, back to Kriegspiel (1862). For a point of reference think of the old Clerical Turning Table, or the aforementioned Strength VS Toughness To Wound Table of G-W fame.

This "General Resolution Matrix" is the heart of Elthos. Cross reference level of effect versus the level of resistance -- for example; Strength and Toughness, or Clerical Level and Undead Hit Dice, or Fighter Level and Armor Class, or Skill Level and Difficulty Class -- the possibilities are endless, but once you determine your situation is 4 to 2 odds, that tells you your 'to hit' or 'chance to succeed', in this case I'm hitting on 2 up (2+ in warhamster speak).

The default matrix assumes a single die (d6 for you dice maniacs out there) but latter we will see appendix entries for 2d6 (my preferred option, Traveller gang for life!), 3d6 (for you bell curvy GURPS-heads), and 4d6 (I'm not even sure who this is for, other than an approximation of d20?) options. Max roll always succeeds, min roll always fails (although the option for GM to engage the 'fail forward' switch is explicitly mentioned, a necessity for investigative campaigns in my opinion, if the investigators don't find them the clue that leads to them to taking ship for London in Masks of Nyarlathoptep... everyone might as well be playing Uno). Instead of automatic success and automatic failures at the extremes, we get increased or decreased effect of action. At 6 to 1 your to hit is still the 2+ of 3 to 1, but your effect is at +3 or 150% and contrariwise, at 1 to 6, you to hit is still the only on 6 of 1 to 3, but your effect is -3 or 50%.

And now you know to to roll the bones in Elthos. I mean yeah there's a little more to it, but after this it's all special cases of the general case.

Moving on from my very favorable impressions of task resolution we arrive at Characters and their Characteristics. Characters in Elthos are composed of a Race, Three or more Requisite Scores (in homage to the idea of 'Prime Requisites'), a Class, a Level, a Heritage, and Skills and Powers.

Races are what they say on the tin, you know how picking a race works in these Elf-games, in the example race tables all the usual suspects are available -- Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings -- as well as some monster-types like Goblins, Kobolds, Ogres, and Vampires. These examples are given average level (for creating NPCs I assume) as well and minimum and maximum Requisite Scores.

Speaking of Character Requisites (AKA Ability Scores, Attributes, or Characteristics) Elthos by default uses three which range from One to Six, which Our Fine Author christens as Strength (ST), Wisdom (WS), and Dexterity (DX). Options to generate these Requisite Scores include rolling in order, rolling and assigning, or point allocation. High and Low Requisites have boni and mali, but nothing crazy, under the 1d6, 1-6 regime, a 5 and a 6 get you +1 and +2 respectively while a 2 and 1 nets you -1 and -2 each.

Classes, yeah, this is a Class and Level game. And you know what? I like it that way. There I said it. I like the iconic and archetypical concepts evoked by classes, as well as the call back to our illiberal ancestors who lived in more or less class and caste hierarchies, yes even occidentals, who had the three estates - those who fight, those who pray, those who work. As far as levels go, I scoff at those who quibble with levels, what else are apprentice, journeyman, and master or the belts of the martial artist than levels I ask you, eh?

As far class selection here in this tome, we have 5 classes offered by default; Thief (DX 4+), Fighter (ST 3+), the 'Spell Chanter' (DX 4+, WS 4+) -- who I am going to call the 'Enchanter' from now on -- Cleric (DX 3+, WS 5+), and Freeman (no min Requisite but pay double cost for skills & powers later). Additionally you can create combination or multi-classes by combining the requirements, abilities, and base experience costs (base cost is the cost for second level for each base class) at a reduced rate -- Multi Class XP Base = SUM(All class XP bases being combined) - (10 * n-1), where n is the number of classes being combined. For example a Fighter-Chanter would need (20 + 30) - (10 * 2-1) or 40 XP to attain second level.

Characters are assumed to start at first level as normal and max out at 6 by default, you know the drill, increasing your level gets you more Life Points (Health) and Mystic Points (Mana). Your starting Heritage is your randomized starting budget, essentially 1d6x100 bucks/credits/guineas/whatever along with a suggested social class (peasant, yeoman, etc). Skills and Powers are purchased with Skill/Mystic Learning Points earned per level (for example a normal fighter gets 1 skill point at first level). Skills are learned at current class level +1 (so our first level fighter picks up hand (light) weapons at rank 2). Skill ranks increase as level increases but may also be trained in play via guild training at GM discretion.

We see some example skills, which are more akin to class abilities than what is usually thought of as skills. We don't see 'reading', 'writing', 'arithmetic', or 'basket weaving' here, but rather one-handed (light) weapons, back stabbing, ranged weapons, move silently, pick pockets, swimming, gambling, horsemanship, salmon leap, and iron fist. The last two are learned by skill learning but powered by MP (Mana) making them examples of wuxia martial arts type abilities. Rounding us out we spend our starting budget on gear, looking at our armor class modifier, DX modifier, damage absorption, and movement modifier for our armor panoply and your damage and attack modifier for your arms. Then pick out your miscellaneous kit and go.

But not quite, rounding things out are recording starting Life Points and Mystic Points (level x ST and WS each) and the Mystic Attack and Defense values based on WS modifier and level. Slap a name on your dripping clone and send out into the world to get murdered horribly.

As we continue to read on we see suggestions for imbuing physical attacks with mystic points (chi powered punches anyone?), taking damage, death, dying, earned experience, experience drain (oh noe, not wraiths!), tactical combat options (zone of control anyone?), fumbles, crits, and mystical powers -- as an aside, I must say that this section should be presented to the reader immediately after the skills rather than where it is -- and we see examples of worked out powers (spells).

You'll note, Dear Reader that I keep saying 'examples' in that that isn't really game ready out of this book. Not fully cooked you might say, like your waiter has brought steak tartar and blowtorch. I might have mentioned before that this is a toolkit type of game, but it really is. It's like on of those evil 'ghost guns' hear about on the news. An unfinished block of aluminum with the cuts started but not finished and a jig to guide the rest of the needed operations. But some assembly is required.

We do get sufficient spells worked out to get through very low level type canned example adventures, but one spell per level isn't going to sustain a campaign. Additionally we have some random encounter charts, bare bones, but every little bit of procedural generation helps with tool kits like this. So much of Traveller or OD&D was just playing with the random generators - characters, dungeons, planets, animals, etc. But like I just said, this book is a build your own game kit. If that doesn't sound like your cuppa tea, you probably aren't the intended audience for this effort.

And that's fine, it's an acquired taste. Heck I probably am not exactly the intended audience for this book either. I can't help but think of these pages as cool bits to rip out and use elsewhere in Traveller or OD&D. And even if I was going to use just this book, I'd start changing things immediately, but more on that at the end. For now, let us read on Dear Reader, next up, the appendices!

IV. Appendicectomies for fun and profit.

It's time for your desert surgery! What? You didn't want to replace your arm with a bionic prosthesis? What about a secondary cyber-brain? No? So... just the cheesecake then? Or the wafer-thin mint? Located after the main rules section and the various print out pages (which mayhap is not the optimal placement, I'd expect blank forms and grids and the character sheet as the end papers, but I digress) we have three appendices, which present alternatives and options to modify the previously presented rules. As we have seen, this is very much in keeping with the tool-kit nature of this text.

Appendix A: Optional Rules opens with a statement that the Gamesmaster needs to be cognizant in his choices because every nip and tuck adds complexity to the whole system, as well, tweaking Gamesmasters are reminded to apply any and all dials and switches to NPCs and PCs alike. If you let your PCs make called shots to the head for double damage, make sure the opfor does it as well. Many of these knobs and switches are designed to modify the tactical combat system, which itself is optional, but this is entirely traditional. Of note is the call out of Skill Use Failures Experience, which I support -- we learn more from failure than success. There's also a Fatigue option, for anyone who wants a green stamina bar along with the red life bar and blue mana bar.

Appendix B: All Elthos Charts is where we see our first glimpse of the promised 2d6, 3d6, and 4d6 Resolution Matrixes. I admit my surprise, and perhaps this just me having a dum-dum moment, but I was surprised to find the expanded charts trimmed. What do I mean? Well for example, the 2d6 chart goes to ten instead of going to twelve as I would have expected, I mean, yes, I know that boxcars is a go and snake-eyes is a no-go, but it just seems weird and incomplete. Similarly, the 3d6 chart goes to twelve not eighteen, and what's more, the 4d6 chart also only goes to twelve as well, rather than twenty-four as I would expect. Thinking about it, this is most likely because the system envisions twelve as the maximum 'god-like' rating possible. Elsewise we have additional copies of all the charts seen thus far, perfect for printing out and assembling into a custom GM's screen.

Appendix C: Math! All the mathematical formulae you could ever want. If you want to know the algorithms that generate any of the charts so you can tweak the values for your own campaign, well here they are.

And that's it, that's the appendices. After the appendices we have a complete index, which again, kudos to the Author for including, thank you, thank you, thank you. This is something big game publishers continually get wrong, so it's nice to see indies get it right.

V. Conclusion

If I take nothing else away from this review, this book is worth just for the reading of it, so read, be inspired, and think about your game, your campaign, about task resolution odds, and the iron dice rolling. Also, contained within these pages is a modular and customizable skill system that you can easily plug into existing OSR -- OD&D, B/X, and AD&D -- contexts.

Overall, I'm impressed. This is a generic and universal build your own game kit in something like a third of the space as the current edition of GURPS. Admittedly, not having the heft of the advantage and disadvantage cruft probably helps in that regard. This all seems workable although one thought that did spring up at me when I saw that there three Prime Requisites -- strength, dexterity, and wisdom -- was that this was an odd trinity to go with. Two physical and one mental? If we're going with a trinity of Ability Scores, why not go with 'Body, Mind, and Spirit' instead? This would be much more thematic and evocative methinks.

Would I play this? Yes, yes I would. Would I Run this? As written, at default settings, probably not. Would I use this to build out something I would run? I think I just might, at least, I'm intrigued enough to give it the good ole' college try. I should add that I have been in communication with Mr. Abrams and he has affirmed that these rules and the Mythos Machine are intended as framework and build your game kit as I have described here. He has also affirmed the statement in the fore-papers implying you can create derivative works without royalty or pre-approval as long as you include an attribution. Another note is that Mythos Machine is intended to have its own internal market, were Gamesmasters can buy pre-fabs from each other, a very interesting idea. Which I shall have to look at when I review that.

Yes Dear Reader, watch this space, a Mythos Machine review is coming.

Until then, Dear Readers, don't do anything I wouldn't do.